Forum	Title	Content	Member	Sex	Country	Date/Time
Philippines	Is this typical for a Filipina?	My fiancee told me she has some goals and dreams. She just keeps it to herself, at least for now. I hope she will eventually be comfortable enough to share her goals and dreams with me, but time will tell... To Mogambi, my fiancee's goals and dreams may very well be different from mine, which is one reason I asked her, instead of assume that I know her dreams and goals. Bingo! This is your marriage risk. We don't have enough information on your history to know how to evaluate it. Maybe you met her on the internet, saw her once for three days, not even in her city, and all this talking about things is online. Couple that with being secretive about the past - and its a sea of red flags. On the other hand you may have a long history with this girl. They're yellow flags at the least. Is there some emergency to get married without knowing her well enough first? She could open up over time and become a fine wife. When they don't tell you things it is because they don't trust you. Could be a girl with self-image problems, depression - any number of things. But I would want to know someone's hopes and dreams before pledging marriage.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-07-19 18:09:00
Philippines	Is this typical for a Filipina?	Maybe this is one of the hard things about meeting on the internet. I was living with her family for months before I went back home and filed K-1. I had been to Philippines many times over the years too, and knew the cultures there before I met her. When you see them around everyone who is important to them for that length of time you know what they're thinking, in its cultural context. I understand why people meet on the internet and they're working so they can't just uproot for months. But it's a good strategy to maximize the amount of time you can spend with her family, close friends, cousins, the little sister... That way too she'll come to know what you're all about pretty quick too.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-07-18 15:44:00
Philippines	Is this typical for a Filipina?	That is why I would truly appreciate some insight, from other Filipinas, especially those who have lived similar lives, to help me better understand. [/color] I read it to my wife. She said: "Tell the wife to be open. No secrets in the Marriage."	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-07-17 20:15:00
Philippines	princess rose	Congratulations.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-07-08 17:16:00
Philippines	hospital and advanced terms	a husband is a servant-leader. Listening to his wife. helping her, and understanding her needs. A good husband is a great servant to his family. This can be true, but it is also classic manipulative cloaking over abusive behavior. It's called "playing the servant role". One of the other classics is the manipulator controlling communications between the people he is manipulating. The language/cultural differences can be true, but it can also be a thing exploited by a control freak. He claims nobody can understand her, and she can't understand anyone else. So communications both ways have to be controlled by Mr. Control-Freaky. Our instructions on predatory manipulators say they choose their quarry carefully: seeking out people who will let them get away with it. Abusive spouses tend to end up with people who accepted abuse in childhood. It is called self-selection bias. Independent, strong-willed people reject control-freaky actions so those relationships end, while people who have had this in their lives actually find a comfort in the familiarity of it, so they stay with a guy when another girl would be running for the hills. If you have no father, then you have no example to go by, and are handicapped relative to girls who had great fathers. If you had an abusive father, it is much higher potential for disordered thinking, and the perpetuation of the problem on through the next generation. If you've stayed in the Philippines for any length of time you have seen daughters who were told growing up that their duty was to bring home the bacon for everyone else. They are on Filipina Cupid or whatever listing themselves as "18 yo stunner wants family rescued from poverty". Youth and beauty can do that on its own. But when it is following the guidance of the wrong person then whoever shows up with the first boat wins. Who knows. The information we get has all gone through the ministry of propaganda before release.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-07-09 13:18:00
Philippines	Has anyone ever had there teeth worked on in the Philippines?	Eric needs some serious prosthetic work done, and I don't think I would have that done by anyone that I wasn't convinced knew what they were doing. I would want a half dozen verifiable references. The online sites have lots of references and if you just go there you can get lots of good clinics, all over the Philippines. We spend enough time over there to where it isn't anything you need to hurry up and do. Take all the time you need. You'll have the money with what you save by avoiding the thieves in the US.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-07-28 20:39:00
Philippines	Has anyone ever had there teeth worked on in the Philippines?	We've had dental work done there at a fraction of the cost. There are places in Manila that cater to foreigners and are both more expensive, but also more modern equipment and training. If all you are doing is filling a cavity, a provincial dentist can do that for laughably cheap. I had a tooth filled that a dentist in the US said needed thousands of dollars for removal and a bridge. It cost $30 if I remember correctly, on Mindanao, and that was four years ago.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-07-27 12:41:00
Philippines	CFO: 12 slots per day?!	I don't understand CFOs limitation for seminars. It's very simple. It's extortion. To get more money, more power, and more pleasure out of tormenting the people that need this worthless stamp, you withhold it from them. You can turn thousands of people into your lobbyists to give them more funding, more salary - anything to get the extortion to end. There's no feeling of satisfaction like grinding the boot-heel into people who are going off to live better lives than you could ever dream of, while pretending to be rescuing them. Having them beg you to give them that precious stamp. When you see the immigrant and spouses smiles turn into agony and despair, that goes a long way towards alleviating the jealousy and envy you feel. I feel badly for the people facing new additional delays and frustrations. The best thing they could do for immigrants is get rid of this asinine requirement.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-07-27 12:34:00
Philippines	Subic Naval and Clark AFB deployment?	From my experiences here and of my friends, this country is just plain tough to make a good buck.. Yes there is money to make and enough to get by on a simple life, but hard if you're looking for a loftier lifestyle. I live in a log cabin in the woods and cut 12 cords of wood a year to heat a wood stove. So you know, I'm not exactly Gentlemen's Quarterly material. I have a small retirement and I work too, and can do consulting for my usual fee over the internet. But my little lady would like to run some kind of food operation, and I also do construction contracting and have already built a house in the Philippines & run a crew there. So I've proved I can handle construction already there. I don't care if the people have sex in the buildings I put up. In fact, that mignt make me put a little extra TLC into it. My personal opinion is I would want to have my hotdog stand right nrxt to the bars, thats where the money is always. I'm just not eager to fight all the hands that would be wanting to take a piece of my pie.. As far as discussion about the area in this thread, I lead a life with no blinders on. Can't hide the fact that its a part of the culture as well. Well, we don't care so much what potential clients are doing besides eating. A mixed asian type menu she can do really well, along with every major american kind of food. Baking and confectionary stuff too.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-08-02 22:14:00
Philippines	Subic Naval and Clark AFB deployment?	I was just in Subic, and I am a military member, and I can tell you there was no shortage of women willing to sell themselves. No matter what happens this will occur. Specially when you get people who have a higher income and they go to lower income regions. You know they were charging 200 peso for a 40 second cab ride? I can pay 200 - 400 to go from Pasig to Quezon City!! Well duh. If you had a port of call with no red light district, THAT would be news. The point is, most of this thread would result in pure speculation. US Military members cannot accurately answer these questions as it is against OPSEC. ( operational security ) and most grunts wouldn't have the answers the OP is looking for anyway. *shrugs* Well I do appreciate chiming in. Information is being presented to Subic economic and local government interests - that fact has been published. I know how these work, they pull information off what are called "command cards" at some bases/posts that have basic economic information like number of troops, the capital and operating budgets, and etc. to give local business and government interests planning time to adapt, and who the contracting supply officers are etc. The local Rotary will have speakers, the road/water/sewer bureacracies will have memos about what upgrades need to take place, etc. We aren't from this area so I am hoping anyone with these or other kinds of connections would have some insights. There are military chat sites that are pretty open about the whole re-alignment to the Pacific. Singapore is part of it too, but I am only interested in Philippines. If anyone has deployed out of Palawan I would like to know about that for sure.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-08-02 21:48:00
Philippines	Subic Naval and Clark AFB deployment?	I am sure Aquino stated that because he knows the filipino people do not want the base re-opened. But what goes on secretly or not so secretly could be a different matter. Yes of course to Aquino, which is why I would like to see exactly what political weasel words he used. And yes, it is kind of what goes on "secretly" except it is an open secret because all these meetings are going on between senators, Obama, Aquino, Joint Chiefs, Subic economic interests, etc. I know the reason why Subic was closed in the first place and it would probably not be good to discuss that here. I was stationed at Subic for 6 months before being deployed to the Persion Gulf to shoot some missles at Hussein. Well sure it is appropriate. I couldn't care less what the reasons are. I just want to understand them so we can make sound business decisions. If you mean the bars and bargirls, well - that is the universal law of all militaries, all countries on earth. There will be 2.7 whorehouses per regiment. Nothing can stop that. But the failure to renew the leases in 1990-1991 had a lot more than just red light districts to it. A lot of Philippine nationalist sentiment, which is why Aquino has to walk a tightrope on this. The main thing we are interested in is this Congressional Report saying higher levels of both troop rotations and rotation of our naval ships in such a way as to establish what amounts to a base without calling it one. That is a LOT of hot dogs. Edited by rlogan, 02 August 2012 - 09:27 PM.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-08-02 21:26:00
Philippines	Subic Naval and Clark AFB deployment?	Not saying I know Subic in the past or am I comparing, but Subic has been moving closer to how it use to be. New local government has helped an increase of bar owners moving out of AC for Subic.. Well, I don't care one way or the other on bargirls, except as it pertains to hotdog sales. I don't know the areas so well as to ascertain what kinds of things are good to introduce if general business picks up. But we are open minded. More concerned with what will work instead of trying to force something. Looks like Philippines will buy up more frigate class ships to apply in the Scarborough Shoal dispute. But Palawan might be the place instead of Subic. I don't know the ports there that well in terms of war vessel capacity but I did see the best ( ) the Philippines Navy has while I was there. China has monster ships by comparison and there were over 100 Chinese ships involved in that dispute if I remember correctly.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-08-02 21:07:00
Philippines	Subic Naval and Clark AFB deployment?	The States have been giving quite a bit of money to the government in the last year. Clark is currently expanding and more is on the way. Looks likr Fed-ex has had enough of china and has solid plans of coming to Clark. There has always been military running missions under the radar. Trips going out of Cebu to Mindanao to fight the rebels and muslim's is an on-going thing. Thanks for the tip. I'll chase that. My wife wants to do some kind of food business. I'm more construction oriented but will sell hot dogs if it makes money.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-08-02 19:57:00
Philippines	Subic Naval and Clark AFB deployment?	Noynoy already stated publicly that he has no intention of opening Subic as a USA Naval Base...... Didn't know that, can you please link to a citation? Thanks! Here is the Congressional Research Service Report that came out in April: CRS report We've sent numerous delegations, like two senators in May having hush-hush meetings with Subic economic interests. Not viewed kindly here: US Go AWAY! Then there was the meeting last month between Aquino and Dempsey, our military joint chiefs of staff commander. The US attack submarine USS North Carolina surfaced at Subic Bay last month, so something seems to be happening. I don't disagree with what you said above. It's just that I have already obtained information from various military sites that larger surface ships have already landed in Subic too, there are these exercises going on, and we have effectively established a permanent presence on Mindanao through the VFA too. I disagree with them doing it, but the effect is to have permanently stationed troops while saying there are no "bases". Various pots of "maintenance" mnoney and whatnot have also been used to beef up the Naval capacity for receiving US class ships on Mindanao too. That's why I am asking if other people know more because on the one hand they're saying nothing is happening, and yet things are happening. Edited by rlogan, 02 August 2012 - 07:52 PM.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-08-02 19:49:00
Philippines	Subic Naval and Clark AFB deployment?	There have been stories in various press reports about US naval forces swinging from 50-50 Atlantic/Pacific deployment to 60-40 deployment in the Pacific, and the hype is specifically about Chinese "aggression" in the Spratleys. This has been ongoing for decades but the US is making a lot of noise about it now for a reason to re-deploy military forces to the Asian theater. I would like to know if anyone has information beyond what I have gathered from various reports because the US is not saying anything about Clark or Subic specifically despite some reports claiming "massive" re-opening of bases. Clark was of course our key forward air base for the Vietnam War, while Subic was the naval base. These were mostly turned back to the Philippines in 1990. Private developers have transformed them into other purposes although we maintain some property holding. Navy ships and US warplanes have continued to land at them. Massive scaling back, not complete abandonment. The only thing of substance from either government that has been publicly announced is the Philippines "inviting" the US to use the bases again, and other statements about how it would have to be approved in conformity with the Constitution. There is a mutual defense treaty already in place, so that seems to be a given because of the way the US is framing all this as Chinese aggression in the Spratleys. This dispute is a very old one and there are six countries involved with Vietnam being by FAR the largest claimant on Islands in the Spratleys. The reason for asking is that obviously if they re-deployed a complete forward air/naval base then this is going to be a place to look for economic opportunities in relatively safe areas of the Philippines. We have a place on Mindanao already but the war with the MILF makes it a little unsafe. Blowing up of our bridges and stores, hand grenades thrown into crowds, americans assassinated outright. Kind of puts a damper on the enthusiasm for retirement there. So is anybody actually seeing deployments moving or construction going or any real signs of something significant happening, or is this hot air directed at China or what?	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-08-02 18:46:00
Philippines	Job in Philippines	Itried that, but her parents want her to have work experience for at least a year in the Philippines. You are being manipulated. Two posts, two red flags, and both of them leave you scratching your head. We were more concerned with direct applied bedroom experience and suggest you pick a fiance with the same inclinations.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-08-02 19:21:00
Philippines	Any K1V applicants been asked by CFO like this?	They asked us the same things a year ago. I made at least two different posts about it, one back when it happened, and another one recently. I just made up a number and told her to give it to them. And how can they know if it's a landline or not? Just tell them it's the ONLY number your fiance' has. My fiancee' had to call me during the CFO interview in Afghanistan to ask my number, which of course I didn't have... not sure WHY they need that. Mine called me from the CFO interview too. To ask my mother's maiden name. Both governments already have that information. THANK GOD we are through with them. Parasites.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-08-05 00:59:00
Philippines	Married yet still married??	The rule on Muslim marriages in Philippines is no more than four wives. (But nobody has ever survived through more than two.)	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-08-05 00:50:00
Philippines	How did you earn your first buck?	Yeah, I remember reading about that, oh-so-many years ago on a PBS documentary. Seems you were lacking the proper equipment, then not enough weapons to satisfy your customers. Glad that whole newspaper thing worked out for ya! I had 13,000 customers. But I had a bike so I could finish before supper.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-07-27 12:17:00
Philippines	How did you earn your first buck?	I started off in the porn industry, which led to running drugs between Columbia and the USA out of Cuba. That of course led to international arms sales, and finally I decided I better lay low with a paper route at age 13.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-07-26 22:54:00
Philippines	American vs Filipino	right, ivyanddan. Type II diabetes is the growing problem. 90% of people diagnosed with type II are overweight, so this "brown vs white rice" is a pretty marginal issue in diabetes. By the way, it's number six in the Philippines, way behind heart disease and just behind it's cousin high blood pressure. Polished rice = empty calories. Oh really. Nutritional needs are categorized by calories, then by macronutrients (protein, carbohydrate, fat, and fiber) by vitamins, and by elements. Rice is mostly carbohydrate and fiber. Neither kind of rice is a significant protein or fat source, and neither has much for vitamins or elements. Fiber is more efficiently taken in through fruits and vegetables, plus they get the vitamin and minerals. White rice is easier to digest than brown. That's the point - white rice tastes better and is a quicker source of energy. Faster, easier nutrition, the mechanics of which are detailed in that article you cited. Brown rice is full of good things. Thank the British for creating a fad that has damned generations of people to a higher incidence of diabetes, rickets, and colorectal cancer than their counterparts in the rest of the world. Oh such melodrama. Brown rice has more fiber. But you can get fiber a lot of different ways. Obesity, alcohol, tobacco, and sedentary lifestyles have a lot more to do with current health problems than whether you eat white or brown rice. That's why the article has to use such weak language like "could" and "might" instead of "does" and "will" reduce type II diabetes.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-06-16 00:49:00
Philippines	American vs Filipino	Diabetes is a big killer there, and the polished rice provides no nutrition other than simple starch. You can find brown rice, but it is usually used for chicken feed. The chickens have a healthier diet than most of the folks in the Philippines. There are lots of fresh fruits and vegetable available, but the way they are often prepared removes much of the nutrition. The wife used to eat lots of sour fruits to relieve her constipation from eating all that white rice. She is especially fond of green mangoes and fish sauce, or pomeloes and cane vinegar. This is a bit of a peeve for me so please do not take it personally. Rice is nutritious food unless you have a food snob definition of nutrition instead of the one in the dictionary. If you don't exercise and are obese then it doesn't matter so much what you ate to get that way - you are a prime candidate for all kinds of things like heart disease, (far and away the #1 killer), hypertension, and type 2 diabetes. Almost every discussion by food health snobs removes economics from consideration, as if poor people could afford to eat the same diet as rich people. Rice scores extremely high on the calories-per-dollar scale, which is how rational people on limited budgets should be allocating their income. Otherwise they can't afford adequate clothing, housing, medicine, etc. which are equally vital to health. Sure, a healthy diet requires consideration of more than just calories per dollar spent but just go ahead and remove rice from the diet and now you have starvation as a problem instead of over-eating as a problem - which is essentially what type 2 diabetes is signalling: eating too much while sedentary.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-06-15 18:24:00
Philippines	American vs Filipino	Philippines has SSS.... I don't know a lot about it because nobody in my wife's family is in it. They all do the traditional kids-support-parents retirement plan. So for anyone who matters to us, no there is no such social security system. I'm self-employed and I have no choice but to pay into it. Congress of course exempted themselves and I think there are some other public employee exemptions. But "covered" by social security in the US means they have a gun pointing at you and if you don't pay they put you in jail.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-06-04 17:31:00
Philippines	help with mama	nothing is as important to me as she is. There's no love like that of an old man for his young bride. Speaking from personal experience anyway. It is like saying no is something which makes you look bad I told you about emotional blackmail and the double-bind when they were putting the squeeze on you for the Flores De Mayo. This wasn't the first time it happened. The irony is that you actually look bad when you do what they want. There's no dignity or respect you gain by being a tool of a con-man. When you say no, that is what gives you dignity and respect. While you say "this is it" and there is no more money, just wait until they roll that dead grandma out. They might even be feeding her small doses of strichnine already. Maybe they'll shoot their Caribau. Someone is going to be sick or hospitalized. Then there's the village. The tradition they aspire to in soaking foreigners for a community bath house with side bar and casino wheel. Time will tell. Gretchen's got the goodies, and she's the one who decides whether to put on the charm or make your life miserable.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-09-27 19:33:00
Philippines	help with mama	Good luck. Well-meaning people wish you well. We do. Some hope for the crash and burn. Who knows what life will bring.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-09-26 16:57:00
Philippines	help with mama	Jeez. 160,000 php is about $3700 US dollars. Plus you traveled to the Philippines three times in nine months. What did that cost in dollars? Ten grand? What the hell did you think her family would think! You set yourself up for this. I think ten grand for everything is order-of-magnitude correct, maybe half a million pesos or something. Travel for the family to Manila was in there too. I can't fault shutting the money spigot off immediately. I didn't know the boat deal had been reneged on, though - you have to render agreed payment. Or else they take her breasts back or something. A Deal's a Deal.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-09-23 20:47:00
Philippines	help with mama	you would not be able to manipulate someone who is mature and educated. Ouch. You know, Gretchen could step up to the plate. She can't let either side use her as a tool. It's all about honest and open communication.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-09-21 14:31:00
Philippines	help with mama	these seem to be contradictory statements. Good catch. Doing the opposite of what we are saying. A budget of 160,000 pesos? I built a house for that, with plumbing and electricity. As far as Americanos go - it's a tiny house in a Filipino slum. We "cheated" with no general contractor, only one subcontractor, and almost all free labor. I saved two walls by adjoining two other buildings! But if you are smart about money in the Philippines, it is incredible what you can accomplish. Merchant Seaman School is 22,000 tuition a year, and 30,000 pesos with books and other expenses. Three years academics total 90,000 pesos. The internship year is free, but you work on a ship. So 160,000 pesos is almost two trade school educations of siblings. Fix everyone's teeth, neighborhood-wide. They have never seen a hundred thousand pesos in their lives and two of them just shot by. Riceland? My God. They'd be land barons. That was a monster fishing boat. Our boat was 3,000 pesos, a fixer-upper now working. Use money more carefully? Plan ahead? Communicate clearly and openly?	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-09-20 15:38:00
Philippines	Finally got that GREEN card	That's a lot behind you now. Congratulations.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-10-07 18:54:00
Philippines	Love thy vegetables ....	Hahahahaha!!!! My wife doesn't eat vegetables. But this is something that could get her started.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-10-12 13:31:00
Philippines	Got Rice?	We turn the warmer off. The rice doesn't do well in a warmer through the day. So we microwave what we use for supper if we make it in the morning. Most seem to like the Jasmine style. Ha! Thanks to the person reminding me about rice-a-roni. I like it and I know she will too. And yeah, mixed wild rice and brown and even the flavored kinds now and then for variety.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-10-19 23:57:00
Philippines	Got Rice?	My Filipina unit thrives on rice, and I learned long ago that good rice is so much better. My mom was a good cook, but straight american food, and the few times we had rice it was minute rice with some wretched canned chow mein and canned crunchy noodles. I had to sneak-feed it to the dog under the table or spit it out on my napkin and smuggle it out to the bathroom and flush it down the toilet. We bought some horrific ####### from Sam's Club that took us three years to finish off because we only ate it when we ran out of Thai Golden Star Prime Grade Jasmine. Sam's sells that too, and it's pretty reasonable. The awful stuff was grown in the US. We had some Calrose we didn't like as much either. This Jasmine is better and worth paying for. They sell something in a much smaller sack, a burlap sack, also from Thailand. It's pretty expensive. Not sure if it is worth the extra money. Can't remember the name but it is blue ink on a burlap bag, made to look like it is for the King of Thailand you know. You can't buy it in a regular grocery store because they sell it in three sizes: Too small, way too small, and by the thimble-full. What do you buy?	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-10-18 20:52:00
Philippines	Amerasians	I wonder how many Filipinos are even aware of the issue? Al Jazeera features Amerasian documentary. Interview with filmmaker http://stream.aljaze...gotten-children Amerasians are people of US parentage but denied their birthright. It is an issue that the government has swept under the rag for more than 100 years and virtually not cared and often LEFT OUT and IGNORED about by most "immigration reform" groups. It should be easy to explain in a sentence or two what birthright has been denied to them. Not a big deal, but it is good courtesy to do this. I don't watch videos or read links if people are not going to spare the time to summarize what is in them.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-10-12 13:29:00
Philippines	OMG - our visa is lost -	Yay. Now there's only three more rounds of the same anguish, uncertainty, and bureacratic confusion once you are here! Yea, Tahoma we didn't throw any cinderblocks. But it proves how stupid this is. They already have her fingerprints. They can be taken in ten minutes at several law enforcement locations, without an appointment. So they keep your green card from you by demanding you get something from them that they refuse to provide, and is completely unnecessary in the first place.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-10-24 17:30:00
Philippines	OMG - our visa is lost -	^^^ Do you feel better now? Not really. They ruined our travel plans, set loooooong ago with plenty of time to do fingerprints for a second unnecessary time. Sitting waiting for months for that precious letter with the sacred case number in it. This is a police state, not a free country.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-10-21 15:13:00
Philippines	OMG - our visa is lost -	Sorry hon! Hurry up and wait, as they say. We're in the fourth round of this disgrace called immigration. Removal of conditions. Being told to get fingerprinted again, yet they already have her fingerprints. Fingerprints do not expire. The last time we finally got an appointment, the finger print copier was broken. So we had to drive 900 miles round trip and stay in a hotel to get them. So we went downtown today with a load of cinder blocks in the back of the truck. Lira started throwing them through the windows of the businesses. She only broke one window, at the coin shop, and the police had pulled up just as she was throwing the second cinder block through the gift shop next door. So the cops were there in under five minutes. In less than half an hour, she had her fingerprints taken. Free of charge. There are by some estimates over 30 million illegal aliens in the USA. All they did was walk across the border. It took two days of hard hiking, but then it was over. They do not have endless rounds of new applications, certified copies of birth certificates, marriage certificates, children's records, and not being able to reach these dictators on the phone. Waiting, waiting, waiting with your lives in their hands. And if you are one minute late, one penny short, or one letter mis-spelled then you are denied. The immigration system discourages good people but makes it easy for the bad people. It does the exact opposite of what it claims to do: they say it is to keep out undesirable people. Like the terrorists who flew the planes into the world trade center. They came in mostly on student visas, and it worked real good keeping us safe from them. And these thirty million illegals who just walked over, breaking the law - by definition all criminals. We have more criminal immigrants than legal ones. Because legal immigration has been made expensive, and more importantly a bureaucratic nightmare that keeps loved ones apart. They make us so crazy like the OP that we can't sleep, can't work, can't think straight and suffer. Not just once, but first the US fiance going through filings, then the Filipina, then again after getting here and "adjusting status", then again for "removal of conditions", then again because even that expires in ten years. My great grandparents got on a ship that landed in New York City, and they walked off the boat. All they did was buy a ticket. This immigration is a perfect example of how stupidly our country is being run - thirty MILLION illegal immigrants - none of them paying a cent, no pictures, no interviews, no forms, no waiting, no worry about having to get a social security number to work. If you think immigration is being run correctly then you have apparently had a lobotomy. Your brain cannot be found with the Hubble Space Telescope nor an electron microscope. Pre-reptilian level of intelligence without capacity for self-awareness. I have a great deal of empathy for the OP.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-10-19 01:28:00
Philippines	Frenchman goes berserk at NAIA 1 because his Pinay girlfriend didn't show up	My fiance was not at the isolated Cagayan de Oro airport when I arrived after insisting she be there early because I did not have a cell phone there yet. After an hour and a half I hired a driver to take me to her city. She arrived to the airport a couple of hours late with no money and sold her cell phone to make fare back home. When she finally got to the hotel late that night I sent her away. I need to think this relationship over. When I had arrived at the hotel, across the street was a bar with a lot of scantily clad ladies, smiling and laughing in such an alluring way. Now here's the way to make a man feel welcome when he arrives. A few months later my wife got into my email, but I had given her permission to do it. What do I have to hide? Well apparently, I had related something to my brother that was somewhat suspicious, regarding what happened one night in the Philippines. Actually, more like courtroom quality evidence. Oh well. You don't have to get all violent if you're stood up.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-10-23 16:27:00
Philippines	Need help understanding "don't open" visa delivery instructions	The government of the USA is training you to become a citizen. Citizens must do precisely as they are told, without asking questions of their masters. They must memorize and obey, not think and act as if they had rights. It is good for the citizens to be in a state of constant anxiety and fear - to struggle over every single word of their master's instructions: to mortally fear getting one precious syllable of the master wrong. When you have achieved the level of blind obedience and absolute fealty to the state, then you can be trusted to pull the lever on the gas chamber as your fellow citizens are herded into Zyklon-B showers. Your only concern will be for following your instructions to the letter. The biggest lesson my wife has learned about the USA is that freedom is a myth.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-10-25 13:52:00
Philippines	Status Report of my case	Well, we are going into our third week of waiting. The CO said three weeks, so something will happen soon. My email was returned with a stock answer that said the case was being reviewed and she will be notified. I know what it does to your insides, so good luck and you have our empathy. it is for the protection of the general good. I realize this is the rationale offered, Bob4Anna, but I respectfully disagree. There are tens of millions of illegal immigrants, and that's pretty staggering given they give so many amnesty. The New York Times estimated three million got amnesty in the 1986 Immigration Control Act, and it is going to happen again. The 9/11 highjackers came in on student visas. Anyone wanting to blow up a refinery or derail a train can just walk across the Mexican border like the millions of others. We recognize that we cannot change the immigration law, and to get her permanent residency we are going to be obedient servants of our masters regardless of how utterly stupid and counterproductive it is. But we at least want the dignity of refusal to agree liberty is slavery. The immigration law is mostly an expensive hindrance to honest and decent people, but not much of an impediment at all to people with murderous designs. The founders stressed what constitutes liberty - ancient principles like Habeus Corpus, jury trial, innocent before proven guilty, rights prohibiting search and seizure, your privacy, assembly, etc. It is the illegals who are protected from invasion of their privacy. For the legal immigrants, the government has huge files on us: where we live, what we do, who our relatives are, how much money we have, etc. With that social security number, they can seize our bank deposits without even telling us anytime they feel like it. If you travel in a lot of different countries then you can see with your own eyes and experience first-hand. You don't automatically say "it's for our own good" when you can see how much better other countries are doing the same thing, or even your own history for that matter. My immigrant forefathers got on ships and came. They did not fill out voluminous forms, wait in line at various offices of government, pay money (other than passage) in multiple rounds of begging their masters to be let in. Look how they have created additional layers of temporary "permanent residency": the words do not mean what they say. I object to living in Orwellian double-speak. I do not have to agree it is for our own good. I object to spikedog's treatment. I do not condone it as for his own good. We see so many petty tyrants in these various offices - and not just in the Philippines. From the Division of Motor Vehicles to Customs and Border enforcement, IRS, zoning board - its everywhere you look.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-11-02 15:46:00
Philippines	Status Report of my case	Sorry to hear of your troubles. A free people must first become prisoners of the state.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-10-25 17:33:00